Climate Action Tanzania, United Republic of Project #51527

Invest in Women! Invest in a Bright Future!

by Solar Sister

Project Report | Mar 1, 2023
Solar Sister Embraces Equity

By Jessica Cheadle | Development Associate

What is Energy Poverty?

Inadequate access to energy leaves those affected dependent on burning solid biomass in inefficient and polluting ways, leaving those, typically in rural and remote communities, in a cycle of unproductivity and poverty.

Access to energy is fundamental to alleviating poverty and advancing health and education, particularly for women and children. Affordable, reliable, and efficient electricity increases productivity, generates jobs, and enhances living conditions and socioeconomic success. Despite this, over one billion people globally lack access to energy, with deficits increasingly concentrated in sub-Saharan Africa¹ and with women and children disproportionately bearing the brunt of its negative impacts.

Why are Women Disproportionately Impacted?

Women can spend up to 10 hours a week collecting fuel for energy use, often leading to young girls being removed from school for firewood collection and preventing women from participating in other income-generating activities.

Walking great distances for fuel leaves women vulnerable to physical attacks.

Cooking with these fuels, and inhaling the toxic smoke, endangers women's and children’s health.

As primary household energy managers with powerful social networks, women are uniquely positioned to bring clean energy to millions of last-mile communities. Business opportunities for women that provide access to gainful employment while addressing affordable, clean energy solutions can finally address these interlinked root causes of inequality, leading to economic empowerment for women and sustainable development capable of addressing the planet’s energy needs. Until this is recognized, sub-Saharan Africa, and the world, will remain behind on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) targets related to poverty, health, education, gender equality, and clean energy access.

Our Mission

In off-grid, remote communities of sub-Saharan Africa, where more than 597 million people have no access to energy, 940 million people rely on harmful fuels for cooking, and 480 million people live in extreme poverty, Solar Sister aims to eradicate energy poverty by investing in women’s clean energy businesses. We put clean power in the hands of the people.

Our Three Pillars of Impact

Energy Access: Energy poverty is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa. Solar Sister drives impact by investing in women’s clean energy businesses in Africa and bringing clean energytolast-milecommunities,providinglocalafter-salesservices,andofferingadiverse product mix to their customers.

Gender Equity: Women’seconomicempowermentiscentraltorealizingwomen’srightsand gender equality. Solar Sister eradicates extreme energy poverty by empowering African women with economic opportunity and providing essential services and training that enable women entrepreneurs to build sustainable businesses.

Climate Justice: Environmental degradation and climate change have disproportionate impacts on women and children. Solar Sister is a climate solution that also improves humanwell-being,boostsequity,andhelpsusherinprosperityforpeopleinsub-Saharan Africa who are least responsible for the climate crisis.

Where We Work

Tanzania - In Tanzania, 38 million people don’t have access to electricity, 30 million people live below the extreme poverty line, and women are 28% less likely to have the same opportunities as men.

Kenya - In Kenya, 16 million people don’t have access to electricity, 8.9 million people live below the extreme poverty line, and women are 27% less likely to have the same opportunities as men.

Nigeria - In Nigeria, 95 million people don’t have access to electricity, 88.4 million people live below the extreme poverty line, and women are 36% less likely to have the same opportunities as men.

To date, you've brought light to over 3,700,000 people, created opportunity for more than 8,500 women, and mitigated more than 1,100,800 metric tonnes of CO2e emissions!

“First, the business plan training at the start of the year inspired me and showed me how much profit I could make by selling a specific group of products. Many of my customers are market women who need lighting for their enterprises or their children at night. Solar lamps let my kids study at night without harming their eyes. Every home needs light. ”- Entrepreneur Taibat Zakariyah

Better Every Day: Our Evidence-Based Approach

Our Program and Monitoring & Evaluation teams are always listening to our data, the teams on the ground, and the women themselves to improve our work and be 'Better Every Day.' We are constantly learning, innovating, and creating programs and projects that best exemplify our three pillars within the ever-evolving state of the world.

Building Wealth-Generating Pathways: Business Booster & Advanced Training Curriculum

As capacity building along the off-grid renewable energy value chain is vital for long-term operation and sustainability, our model includes a twelve-month training curriculum coupled with ongoing mentorship for women entrepreneurs.

Additionally, we believe that to increase gender equity, it is essential to provide Solar Sister Entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses the opportunity, support, and skills to advance in the clean energy marketplace. Upon completing the core Solar Sister curriculum, we received feedback from entrepreneurs that they wanted additional advanced training to grow their businesses.

Project:

In 2022, Solar Sister continued to create wealth—generating pathways for women by providing our Advanced Training Curriculum to all entrepreneurs who have been with Solar Sister for at least two years. This training builds on the already robust core training curriculum provided by Solar Sister but focuses explicitly on growing a business rather than building a business. The training curriculum encompasses 12 modules that focus on building essential skills, including product knowledge, marketing, sales strategies, and financial literacy.

In 2020 and continuing into 2022, we implemented our “Business Booster” program by selecting experienced Solar Sister entrepreneurs to help them grow their Solar Sister businesses and increase their income. Business Booster Entrepreneurs received marketing materials and Solar Sister IDs to help their businesses look and feel more formal, along with tailored one-on-one business coaching and access to a revolving zero interest-rate credit mechanism, whereby they could purchase solar products through a 30-day loan of up to $200.

Digitizing Entrepreneurs Businesses

Solar Sister’s Digital Literacy Program was designed to provide our entrepreneur's knowledge, skills, self-confidence, hardware, and software. As part of this program, Solar Sister provides entrepreneurs who have smartphones with digital literacy training – teaching them how to use this technology to digitize and grow their businesses. Modules cover topics such as online marketing, sales, and using social media for business. As part of our digitization program, in 2022, we also gave entrepreneurs access to data for the first time to help them identify where ideal customers live. This, in turn, allows the entrepreneurs to sell more efficiently, thus driving access to clean energy solutions.

Project:

In 2022, we scaled up Solar Sister’s digital literacy program to 212 entrepreneurs.

The digital literacy training, piloted with 100 entrepreneurs in 2021, was refined in 2022 based on feedback from entrepreneurs and Business Development Associates (the field staff who recruit, train, and support them). Training content in 2022 focused on how social media can be used to develop and showcase personal brand techniques and how entrepreneurs can craft tailored and meaningful posts to promote and grow their businesses. It also taught our entrepreneurs how to use popular apps like WhatsApp to communicate with customers and generate new sales. The training content incorporated examples from entrepreneurs and several activities focused on practicing and using digital platforms.

"The phone has helped me to arrange meetings with other community women groups that have resulted in me making more sales."

"Sending SMS has helped me notify my customers about my new products and has made my job easier."

Links:

Permalink

Nov 7, 2022
Solar Sister Turning on the Lights!

By Catarina Morais | Grants Management Associate

Dear Friend,

You subscribed to email updates from Invest in Women! Invest in a Bright Future! by Solar Sister, a project on GlobalGiving. Here's the unedited update from the field:

Solar Sister Turning on the Lights!
By Catarina Morais, Grants Management Associate

PLEASE ADD PHOTO HERE (see word doc attached)

“I can stand anywhere. I am not looking behind. The work boosts my expectations. There is nothing I cannot do.” - Mujeedat, Solar Sister Entrepreneur

The Challenge: The nexus of energy poverty and gender equality. Access to energy is fundamental to achieving several United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) such as, alleviating poverty, advancing health, improving education and water and sanitation, and addressing climate change (UN Energy, 2020). However, 940 million people (13% of the world) do not have access to electricity and 3 billion (40% of the world) do not have access to clean fuels for cooking (Our World in Data, 2020). Energy poverty is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa, where energy access rates are the lowest in the world. In Africa, roughly 600 million people lack electricity and 890 million cook with traditional fuels (IEA, 2018).

Women bear the brunt of the effects of energy poverty. Women, on average, spend over three times more time on unpaid care and domestic work than men (UN 2019); access to clean and affordable energy can potentially reduce drudgery, and thus also contribute to the empowerment of women (SDG5). As gender equality is considered both an outcome and driver of development, the links between energy access and gender equality run in parallel (Clancy et al., 2003).

What Needs to be done? Solutions exist in the form of decentralized solar energy (among other renewables) for electricity, and clean cooking options range from improved biomass to LPG. Yet, to reach the level of implementation needed for universal energy access, adoption of these solutions requires practical, local, scalable distribution of these solutions to the people who most need them - the women who are managing the daily energy needs of their households. We cannot achieve the SDG goal of universal energy access if we leave out half the population. The solution to energy poverty must include deliberate focus on underserved markets and intentional inclusion of overlooked resources of women’s enterprise.

Solar Sister brings energy access and economic opportunity to women entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan African “last mile” communities. Currently working in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Kenya, Solar Sister delivers sustainable energy solutions through women’s enterprise in these communities by providing ongoing training, mentoring, and support for a thriving network of Solar Sister Entrepreneurs (SSEs).

To date, Solar Sister has recruited more than 8,000 SSEs whose businesses bring life-transforming renewable energy solutions to their local communities. Together, these businesses have provided more than 3.4 million people with clean energy and created a ripple effect of positive impacts on the health, education, environment, and economic livelihood of the women entrepreneurs, their families, and their communities. By tapping into women’s enterprise, Solar Sister has designed a market-based solution that is replicable, scalable, and sustainable. Solar Sister provides a grassroots solution that empowers African women as distributors, educators, and end-users. Under the dynamic leadership of local women leaders, our local staff recruit, train, and mentor entrepreneurs at monthly Sisterhood Group Meetings, where SSEs receive training, share about common challenges and success stories, and form supportive relationships with one another. SSEs then educate communities, use personal testimonies as a key behaviour change tool to encourage neighbours and friends to use renewable energy, and provide high-quality solar, clean cooking solutions and after-sales service to their community’s doorstep.

Digital Literacy Training

Solar Sister is working with the Cisco Foundation to build women entrepreneurs’ technological capacity and 21st century business acumen by providing mobile toolkits to Solar Sister Entrepreneurs (SSEs), which in turn improves their ability to collect better customer data. Through innovative virtual and online training tools and newly developed wealth generation pathways, SSEs can develop their entrepreneurial skills, expand their business, and save and reinvest their earned income. This 2nd year program has the following specific activities and goals:

Provide mobile toolkits to SSEs that enable them to improve their business outcomes through: improved customer and sales data, access to mobile services such as mobile payments and savings, mobile-based training support, and online marketing opportunities;
Design innovative virtual and online training tools to complement our core curriculum; and
Develop wealth generation pathways by supporting existing SSEs to develop their entrepreneurial skills, expand their businesses to meet market demand, and through testing programs to encourage capital reinvestment and savings.

This training provides SSEs with digital toolkits as a means to enhance Solar Sister’s virtual training capabilities and improve SSEs’ digital literacy, which will help amplify their future business success and growth. Comprehensive toolkits will include the digital software and hardware needed to successfully manage their businesses in an increasingly digital world. In conjunction with the toolkits, we will implement a digital literacy training package based on SSE feedback regarding challenges faced and gaps in the skills and tools necessary for business growth and digitization. Training content will include digital marketing techniques, digital financial literacy, financial technology, data collection, and other critical business skills to help SSEs expand their markets and increase sales in the coming year. The toolkits and accompanying training will be particularly useful in helping SSEs collect and analyze better customer data and information. After piloting the toolkits with an initial group of 100 SSEs, we will evaluate outcomes to ensure that the investment is replicable, scalable, and sustainable to roll out to all SSEs.

We Solve Training

WE SOLVE stands for ‘Women Entrepreneurship through the Solar Value chain for Economic development in Tanzania.’ The project aims to tackle the twin problem of (1) the lack of employment and economic opportunities for women in rural Tanzania, and (2) the lack of access to clean energy, especially for rural Tanzanians. It involves a unique global partnership between Solar Sister, BRAC - the world’s largest development organization, and Signify (formerly known as Philips Lighting) - a global company offering high quality, reliable and safe lighting products. In recent years, the partners have been committed to piloting and testing an innovative business and technology model committed to creating clean, safe jobs for women in rural areas whilst simultaneously improving the lives of numerous people living in dimly lit conditions in rural Tanzania. For those who cannot afford to purchase the solar products directly, BRAC Microfinance is offering a new solar loan product, enabling clients to buy solar products, therefore improving their living conditions and earning potential. BRAC already has a robust microfinance network in place to assist with the mission to light up rural Tanzania. The project is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Denmark (Danida) and the Signify Foundation, with additional investment from Signify.

Business Booster Program

Through our Business Booster Program, our goal is to provide high growth potential entrepreneurs with the support they need to boost them to new levels of success, generating increased income for the entrepreneur, increased visibility of their business and equipping them to move from micro-entrepreneur to small and medium businesses. The Business Booster program will be delivered as a one-year graduation program, with three cohorts over three years. The program is delivered in a Pilot, Roll-out, and Scale up phase to allow for rapid testing of what works/what doesn’t work during, making improvements in each successive year. Identifying entrepreneurs is the first step to enabling them to succeed. Solar Sister is in a unique position to identify potential high growth entrepreneurs by observing the pool of SSEs’ initial entrepreneurial uptake and selecting those that demonstrate superior ability, agency and ambition. We will identify SSEs using “Booster Selection Criteria '' that will be based on SSE’s term with Solar Sister (at least 1 year), sales volumes, consistency of business and growth of business. Entrepreneurs who meet the qualification criteria will be given an opportunity to apply to the Business Booster program, ensuring they are self-selecting to invest the effort into the program necessary for success.

Solar Sister will custom design a combination of short-term residential training and ongoing training, online/mobile enabled learning support. We have established a framework of training that fosters knowledge transfer and capacity building. Solar Sister’s training program will address the specific needs of these entrepreneurs, including increased product and technology knowledge, problem solving, business planning, financial planning, entrepreneurial growth, access to finance, developing new markets, and additional agency and leadership skills. We are also building relationships between entrepreneurs to allow them to build connections within the cohort. Burgeoning entrepreneurs can gain invaluable assistance from peers to help them continue developing their acumen to successfully build their businesses.

Links:

Learn more about us!

Links:

Reach out to us at Catarina@solarsister.org

Links:

https://solarsister.org/

Attachments:

See report with photo attached (DOCX)

1 Attachment

Permalink

Jul 12, 2022
Solar Sister Expands our Reach!

By Angela Travers | Director of Development

The Challenge: The nexus of energy poverty and gender equality. Access to energy is fundamental to achieving several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): alleviating poverty, advancing health, improving education and water and sanitation, and addressing climate change (UN Energy 2020). However, 940 million people (13% of the world) do not have access to electricity and 3 billion (40% of the world) do not have access to clean fuels for cooking (Our World in Data, 2020).

Energy poverty is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa, where energy access rates are the lowest in the world. In Africa, roughly 600 million people lack electricity and 890 million cook with traditional fuels (IEA, 2018). Nigeria alone has more people without access to electricity than any other country in the world, and in Tanzania, less than 17% of rural households have access to electricity (Our World in Data, 2020).

Women bear the brunt of the effects of energy poverty. Women, on average, spend over three times more time on unpaid care and domestic work than men (UN 2019); access to clean and affordable energy can potentially reduce drudgery, and thus also contribute to empowerment of women (SDG5). As gender equality is considered both an outcome and driver of development, the links between energy access and gender run in both directions (Clancy et al 2003).

What Needs to be done? Solutions exist in the form of decentralized solar (among other renewables) for electricity, and clean cooking options range from improved biomass to LPG. Yet, to reach the level of implementation needed for universal energy access in SSA, adoption of these solutions requires practical, local, scalable distribution of these solutions to the people who most need them - the women who are managing the daily energy needs of their households. We cannot achieve the SDG goal of universal energy access if we leave out half the population. The solution to energy poverty must include deliberate focus  on underserved markets and intentional inclusion of overlooked resources of women’s enterprise.

Solar Sister brings energy access and economic opportunity to women entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan African “last mile” communities. Currently working in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Kenya, Solar Sister delivers sustainable energy solutions through women’s enterprise in these communities by providing ongoing training, mentoring, and support for a thriving network of Solar Sister Entrepreneurs (SSEs). To date, Solar Sister has recruited more than 7,000 SSEs whose businesses bring life-transforming renewable energy solutions to their local communities. Together, these businesses have provided more than three million people with clean energy and created a ripple effect of positive impacts on the health, education, environment, and economic livelihood of the women entrepreneurs, their families, and their communities. By tapping into women’s enterprise, Solar Sister has designed a market-based solution that is replicable, scalable, and sustainable. Solar Sister provides a grassroots solution that empowers African women as distributors, educators, and end-users. Under the dynamic leadership of local women leaders, our local staff recruit, train, and mentor entrepreneurs at monthly Sisterhood Group Meetings, where SSEs receive training, share about common challenges and success stories, and form supportive relationships with one another. SSEs then educate communities, use personal testimonies as a key behavior change tool to encourage neighbors and friends to use renewable energy, and provide high-quality solar, clean cooking solutions and after-sales service to their community’s doorstep.

Digital Literacy Training

Solar Sister is working with the Cisco Foundation to build women entrepreneurs’ technological capacity and 21st century business acumen by providing mobile toolkits to Solar Sister Entrepreneurs (SSEs), which in turn improves their ability to collect better customer data. Through innovative virtual and online training tools and newly developed wealth generation pathways, SSEs can develop their entrepreneurial skills, expand their business, and save and reinvest their earned income. This 2nd year program has the following specific activities and goals:

Provide mobile toolkits to SSEs that enable them to improve their business outcomes through: improved customer and sales data, access to mobile services such as mobile payments and savings, mobile-based training support, and online marketing opportunities;
Design innovative virtual and online training tools to complement our core curriculum; and
Develop wealth generation pathways by supporting existing SSEs to develop their entrepreneurial skills, expand their businesses to meet market demand, and through testing programs to encourage capital reinvestment and savings.

This training provides SSEs with digital toolkits as a means to enhance Solar Sister’s virtual training capabilities and improve SSEs’ digital literacy, which will help amplify their future business success and growth. Comprehensive toolkits will include the digital software and hardware needed to successfully manage their businesses in an increasingly digital world. In conjunction with the toolkits, we will implement a digital literacy training package based on SSE feedback regarding challenges faced and gaps in the skills and tools necessary for business growth and digitization. Training content will include digital marketing techniques, digital financial literacy, financial technology, data collection, and other critical business skills to help SSEs expand their markets and increase sales in the coming year. The toolkits and accompanying training will be particularly useful in helping SSEs collect and analyze better customer data and information. After piloting the toolkits with an initial group of 100 SSEs, we will evaluate outcomes to ensure that the investment is replicable, scalable, and sustainable to roll out to all SSEs.

We Solve Training

WE SOLVE stands for ‘Women Entrepreneurship through the Solar Value chain for Economic development in Tanzania.’ The project aims to tackle the twin problem of (1) the lack of employment and economic opportunities for women in rural Tanzania, and (2) the lack of access to clean energy, especially for rural Tanzanians. It involves a unique global partnership between Solar Sister, BRAC - the world’s largest development organization, and Signify (formerly known as Philips Lighting) - a global company offering high quality, reliable and safe lighting products. In recent years, the partners have been committed to piloting and testing an innovative business and technology model committed to creating clean, safe jobs for women in rural areas whilst simultaneously improving the lives of numerous people living in dimly lit conditions in rural Tanzania. For those who cannot afford to purchase the solar products directly, BRAC Microfinance is offering a new solar loan product, enabling clients to buy solar products, therefore improving their living conditions and earning potential. BRAC already has a robust microfinance network in place to assist with the mission to light up rural Tanzania. The project is funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Denmark (Danida) and the Signify Foundation, with additional investment from Signify.

Business Booster Program

Through our Business Booster Program, our goal is to provide high growth potential entrepreneurs with the support they need to boost them to new levels of success, generating increased income for the entrepreneur, increased visibility of their business and equipping them to move from micro-entrepreneur to small and medium businesses.The Business Booster program will be delivered as a one-year graduation program, with three cohorts over three years. The program is delivered in a Pilot, Roll-out, and Scale up phase to allow for rapid testing of what works/what doesn’t work during, making improvements in each successive year. Identifying entrepreneurs is the first step to enabling them to succeed. Solar Sister is in a unique position to identify potential high growth entrepreneurs by observing the pool of SSEs’ initial entrepreneurial uptake and selecting those that demonstrate superior ability, agency and ambition. We will identify SSEs using “Booster Selection Criteria '' that will be based on SSE’s term with Solar Sister (at least 1 year), sales volumes, consistency of business and growth of business. Entrepreneurs who meet the qualification criteria will be given an opportunity to apply to the Business Booster program, ensuring they are self-selecting to invest the effort into the program necessary for success.

Solar Sister will custom design a combination of short-term residential training and ongoing training, online/mobile enabled learning support. We have established a framework of training that fosters knowledge transfer and capacity building. Solar Sister’s training program will address the specific needs of these entrepreneurs, including increased product and technology knowledge, problem solving,business planning, financial planning, entrepreneurial growth, access to finance, developing new markets, and additional agency and leadership skills. We are also building relationships between entrepreneurs to allow them to build connections within the cohort. Burgeoning entrepreneurs can gain invaluable assistance from peers to help them continue developing their acumen to successfully build their businesses.

Links:

Learn more about us!

Links:

Permalink

1 2 ›

About Project Reports

Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.

If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.